adventures at the airport and other random musings

Month: August 2017

In the United States, National Aviation Day is held on August 19. Here’s how I’ve celebrated at work the last couple years:

I bring in cookies.

Everyone eats them.

Yeah… not very exciting or inspiring. This year, however, I lucked into a very coveted ticket to attend AAviation Day at one of my favorite places – Charlotte Douglas International Airport! No, that’s not a spelling error – the extra “A” in “AAviation” is a nod to American Airlines who, in conjunction with the Airline Geeks, put together an awesome behind-the-scenes tour at the nation’s 5th busiest airport. Can you say avgeek heaven? Oh yeah!

I kicked things off early by parking on the very top level of the garage. No way was I going to pass up the chance to do a little pre-event plane spotting! (And lets face it, if they handed out diplomas for plane spotting from parking garages, I’d have a PhD!) My dedication paid off – I got my very first look at Amazon’s Prime Air 767. Sweet!

From there I made my way to the terminal to meet up with the rest of the group. There were about 12 of us altogether. I expected that most attendees would be from the Charlotte area. Wrong! In fact only one of the group lives near CLT. The rest were from places like New York, Texas, Florida and even California and Washington! Some of us work in aviation and some don’t, but all of us were kids in a candy store the whole day.

The tour began with a visit to the Operations Tower. Wow – what a view! And what a lot of computer equipment! The Operations Tower is responsible for all aircraft movement on the ramp. I wish we had a set-up like that for deice pad control in the winter! But then again, the ramp at CLT is a MUCH busier place with 600+ flights per day. We were allowed to wander around the room, examine the different work stations and ask questions. I honestly could have stayed for hours!

Our next stop was out onto the roof where we had a fabulous view of the ramp. The entire group went camera-happy, snapping pics almost non-stop. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many American airplanes all in one spot! Good thing there wasn’t deck furniture and a cabana (and drinks) up there or they might have had some trouble convincing me to leave!

From the roof we went all the way down to the ground level for a walking tour of the ramp (with ear plugs and high-viz vests, of course). Being around the airplanes and crews and ground equipment was simply spectacular. There was so much going on – it’s much busier than what I am used to! Alas, there was not a single stairs truck in sight! Fortunately there were so many airplanes and so much to see that I didn’t mind.

After the ramp tour, we visited the American Airlines offices and enjoyed lunch in a cool, comfortable conference room. (Did I mention that the temps were a toasty 90F+ outside?) Several executives from American joined us and we were able to chat with them about how the company has grown over the years, as well as some of their future challenges.

After lunch, the awesomeness continued with a tour of the training facility. We met in a conference room first to learn a little about the training program itself and watch a video about the history of American Airlines. Then we visited the egress training area where Flight Attendants learn how to operate various types of emergency exits. Seeing the cut-away plane interiors was actually quite fascinating. They even had an E145 fuselage (minus the nose, wings and tail).

From there we moved into one of the flight simulator rooms. There were three Airbus A320 sims in this particular room, all of which were in use. (The facility has approximately 13 sims of various types.) It was fascinating to watch the sims move around and to speculate on the scenarios that the pilots inside might be facing.

Our last stop of the day was the American Airlines maintenance facility. The first thing I noticed when I walked in the door is how big it is. Similar to the Boeing factory in Seattle, employees use bikes to get around. We walked through fabrication areas and past the parts room on our way out to the hangars where there were three planes undergoing maintenance. I can tell you this – I do NOT want to be the person assigned to work on the top of the tail! Then again, climbing up and down all those flights of stairs would definitely be good exercise!

Our last event of the day was a visit inside one of the planes in the hangar (an A320). We examined the cockpit and then lounged in first class for several minutes. I also checked out the seats in the back and found them to be roomier than expected.

All too soon, however, it was time to exit the plane, take our final group photo and catch a shuttle back to the terminal. I couldn’t believe it was time to say goodbye already! We were so busy the day just flew by. Fortunately we had new friendships, amazing memories and some cool swag to take away with us.

Look! I found the motorized stairs!!!

As a passionate aviation enthusiast who happens to work in the industry, I have had many amazing avgeek experiences. However, I can honestly say that AAviation Day ranks right up at the top. A HUGE thank you goes out to Ryan Ewing and the Airline Geeks for all they did to plan and organize the event, as well as the wonderful staff at American Airlines for making the day so special!

So what do you think? Are you crazy jealous and wondering how you can experience AAviation Day for yourself? Check out the Airline Geeks website and follow them on twitter. Events were held at all of American’s hubs, as well as two locations overseas. And the ticket cost? Zero. Zip. Nada. Free! But you have to pay attention if you want to score one. If this year was any indication, next year will be even bigger and better. Hope to see you there!

EAA’s Airventure runs for a full seven days. I was there for five of them. This sounds like it should be plenty of time to see everything, but it isn’t. Not even close! However, I can say with full confidence that I made the most of the time that I had.

More Blue Angels

I mentioned in my last post that in addition to interviewing the pilot of Blue Angel #4, I also interviewed one of the enlisted men. Petty Officer First Class Jamichael (Jay) Semien is one of the crew coordinators on the team. Along with overseeing the ground operations, he is responsible for all the safety equipment on the planes. When I asked him how that is accomplished he explained that with some systems, like the oxygen system, there are tests that can be run. However for other systems, like the ejection seats, the only way to test them is to deploy them. Obviously no one wants to do that, so they have a rigorous maintenance schedule that they follow to ensure everything remains in perfect working order.

I really have to take a moment to once again thank the Blue Angels team members for being so gracious and generous with their time. These are men and women who are serving their country 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and who step up to defend our freedoms at a moment’s notice. I cannot thank them enough for their service.

Days 4 & 5

Thursday started with a visit inside the KC-135. This was a huge treat for me because I see these planes quite often and had been longing to get a closer look at one. From there I hustled over to the EAA radio center where I had the tremendous honor of being interviewed by Amy Laboda and Jeb Burnside for the Attitude Adjustment show. To be completely honest, I was pretty darn nervous! Thankfully Amy and Jeb made it easy. Give it a listen!

Other notable events on Thursday and Friday included a tour of an RAF A400, an interview with an official from Airbus, and an interview with the director of NASA Langley. If you haven’t already done so, you MUST go check out the Flying and Life Podcast. Mike did a great job with these interviews – you REALLY don’t want to miss them.

Friday afternoon I attended a media briefing with Gene Kranz, Walter Cunningham and Jim Lovell from the Apollo space program. What a tremendous honor that was! I also heard them speak at the NASA presentation on Friday night. As I listened to them swap stories and share behind-the-scenes insights, it really brought home to me the breadth of the aviation world that is present at Airventure. You can find it all, from ultralights to the space program and everything in between.

The Rest of the Story

You might be thinking, hey Jenn – weren’t there daily air shows? Didn’t you watch any of them? Yes, there was an air show every afternoon. And most days I caught bits and pieces of them as we dashed from one event to the next. We were so busy running around that it wasn’t until Friday that I had time to just sit and watch a full show. And what a spectacular show it was! I was especially pleased that the Heritage Flight included not one, but TWO Warthogs! Rock on! EAA really does it right.

Other notable moments included attending several meet-ups, including one with Captain Jeff from the Airline Pilot Guy show who was visiting Airventure for the first time. I also finally made it to Camp Scholler and was able to spend some time with the amazing folks of Camp Bacon. And I paid my respects at the coffin. What is that you ask? You’ll just have to come to Osh18 and find out!

Final thoughts

As I write this I am still decompressing from the week, however there are two major things that stand out to me. The first is all the amazing people I had the pleasure of meeting/seeing again this year. I cannot begin to list names (there are far too many!) but I just have to say how absolutely awesome it was to connect with every one of you. You are proof that aviation people are without a doubt some of the best people in the world.

Hey look – there goes my new best friend, Lt. Benson!

The second thing that stands out to me is how incredibly blessed I am to have been able to find a place inside an industry that I love so much. If you had told me at my first Airventure four years ago that by 2017 I would be working at an airport, writing a successful blog and that I would have so many amazing aviation friends, I never would have believed it. Yet here I am – proof that really cool things CAN happen to ordinary people who happen to love airplanes.

So what do you think? Want to have your mind blown? Airventure Oshkosh 2018 is less than a year away. Are you in?

PS: You thought I forgot about the stairs trucks, didn’t you. Go ahead, admit it! You’ve read through this post and there has been no mention of them. Well fear not, intrepid readers, I NEVER forget the stairs trucks! The photos below are an example of what happens when a stairs truck is left unguarded in my vicinity.

Authors note: Special shout-out to Mike Karrels (FlyingAndLife Podcast) and Dan Pimentel (Airplanista) – thanks for all your help and support. Shout out also to Rob Mark (Flying Magazine/Jetwhine) – thanks for inviting me to be on Attitude Adjustment. You were very much missed! And thanks to David Abbey, Daniel Dusome and John Brown who took the people/group photos.

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